FrankenDesk lives again! (Reply)

A couple of weeks ago, CJ tripped over a power cord. This immediately led to a series of interconnected accidents that would make Rube Goldberg jealous, and ended with him sitting on the floor under my desk, holding it up as the side fell over.

Fortunately, CJ was not seriously hurt. Nor was there anything expensive-and-fragile on my desk, and the universe kindly decided to let the inexpensive-but-fragile items survive to shatter another day. The only casualty was the desk itself, and John swiftly came up with a way to MacGuyver it back together so that I could get my Internet fix while I decided what I wanted to do about the desk. In the spirit of all proper DIY furniture repair, the solution involved propping it up with a stack of books.

I spent more time than is prudent just staring at the desk and the area it lives in, and I started thinking about all the things I don't like about the desk. I've never done well with L-shaped desks to begin with, and the location of power outlets and windows and the TV in the room has meant that my work space is on my left, while my dominant hand is on my right.

And so, I started to scheme and plot. I had A Plan. It required cleaning the desk off, a task slightly more strenuous than "Clean the Aegean stables." After weeks of cleaning things up and finding new homes for it all, I finally executed the final stages of The Plan. Again, in the spirit of all proper DIY furniture repair, I changed the plan three times in the middle of executing it.

It's not quiiiite stable enough for me to want to put anything expensive on it, but that's easily fixed by a $5 trip to Home Depot for some 90-degree brackets and 10 minutes with a drill. In the meantime, I'm pretty pleased with it-- because it's a straight desk, I feel like I have more room (though that might just be the current lack of clutter) and there's definitely more room to walk around it (er, except for the clutter behind it, as things that used to be on the desk and will someday be on the desk again got moved to the floor and chair behind the desk). Plus, I managed to take apart the old desk without dropping any of it on myself, which I'm very pleased about.